Nokia has outsourced desktop management and help desk functions in 76 countries to Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies.
HCL announced on Thursday that the handset maker has signed a five-year contract for an undisclosed sum.
The outsourcer has set up a new office in Helsinki, Finland, to deliver near-shore services to Nokia, in addition to delivering services from centers in Poland, China, the U.S. and India.
The contract includes multilingual helpdesk services in 13 languages, global account management, workstation packaging, creation and maintenance, workstation security management, and on-site support services delivered by partners, HCL said.
Indian outsourcers have typically not been able to get desktop management contracts because they do not have a global presence, and rely on local partners at each location, said Siddharth Pai, a partner at outsourcing consultancy firm Technology Partners International (TPI) in Houston.
“A key factor in this relationship will be how much control HCL can exercise over its local partners,” Pai said.
The Helsinki center will have 100 staff and will help HCL offer near-shore delivery of services to its other customers in the Nordic and Baltic regions, the company said.
Some Indian outsourcers like HCL have set up facilities in the U.S. and Europe to offer customers a mix of services delivered from locations close to the customer, and from offshore locations like India.
HCL manages over 650,000 desktops under its remote infrastructure management program.